Mastering Blocking & Stuttering: A Cognitive Approach to Achieving Fluency

"If you can speak fluently in just one context, you can learn to speak fluently in all contexts."

Bobby G. Bodenhamer

Developing a Propulsion System for Fluency

by

by Tim Mackesey, CCC-SLP

Pour la traduction française, cliquez ici (PDF)

Purpose

The intention of the State Management Graph below is to help people using Neuro-Semantics to habituate the use of strategies.  Daily use of strategies will provide for more consistent resourcefulness and improved fluency.  To make sense out of the acronyms and terminology in the graph, a background in Neuro-Semantics is required.  Many of these strategies are available for free as downloads from www.neurosemantics.com.  Others are outlined in Bob Bodenhamer’s training manual, Mastering Blocking & Stuttering: A Handbook for Gaining Fluency, available on-line through the website.

What is a state and why is important to me to manage mine?  A simplified definition of a state is how resourceful you are feeling and thinking at a given moment.  In the body of a person who stutters (pws), a state can be measured by rate of breathing, degree of muscular tension (particularly in the torso, larynx, tongue, and lips), energy level, blocking, rate of speech, and many other dynamics.  In the mind of a pws, a state can be evaluated by terms such as mood, feeling safe or threatened, anticipatory anxiety, confidence, beliefs about listener’s reaction, and other cognitive-linguistic phenomenon.  If you manage your state, you run your brain; and vice versa.

PWS, like all other human beings, are at-risk for embarking on personal change and then becoming complacent or “forgetting” to do the very strategies they know help them.  Do you know anyone who announced a “New Year’s Resolution” and did not achieve it?

Someone once coined the expression that is takes 21 days to form a new habit.  By using the graph and holding yourself accountable you will form new habits.  To succeed a person must have a compelling future image of what it will be like to have freedom of speech, specific strategies, beliefs to support success, a strong purpose for achieving it, and then make a decision to DO IT.

Towards Motivation

Towards Motivation occurs when we are driven to achieve a compelling outcome.   An outcome must have significant meaning to us.  When this propulsion system is programmed into your mind, it works like a guided missile.  Every pws I coach comes to me with “away from motivation.”  They are trying to not stutter.  They have, in effect, developed a propulsion system programmed to prevent and avoid stuttering.  This missile will miss the target.   Below is an example of away from patterns common to pws:

( – )                                                                                                      ( +)

AWAY FROM STUTTERING                                                                     TOWARD FLUENCY

<——————————————————————————————————————–>

–        word changing

–        avoiding talking

–         eye contact aversion

–         telephone avoidance tricks

–         blocking

–         mind-reading listeners

–         interjections and filler words

–         other attempts to conceal stuttering

–

Obviously, the pws must abandon each of these toxic, away-from patterns listed above if they desire to change.

Taking the concept of towards motivation and making it your propulsion system is critical to state management and eventual consistency in speech. Cognitive psychologist L. Michael Hall, coined the term mind-to-muscle (Hall, 2000) to describe how we take a principle and make it a daily habit.  The graph is designed to help mind-to-muscle the use of the strategies.  A pws can analyze his state, select a strategy, create a more resourceful state, and keep a score card by the graph.

How is that an obese person can dramatically change his entire being by sticking to an exercise regimen, changing his entire diet, and becoming disciplined?  They must have propulsion system.  A person who loses weight, and keeps the weight off, is motivated by either pain or pleasure.  Pain can originate from a doctor scaring them with suggestions of future health trouble.  Pleasure can come from making an image of themselves at their ideal weight.  Whether the motivation for weight loss originated as a toward or an away-from pattern the successful dieter had to mind-to-muscle significant exercise and eating habits.  These changes become a new “operating system.”

People who stutter know how to stutter very well.  What I mean by this is that they have repeated patterns of thinking, feeling, and stuttering for years.  When they begin to relapse the vortex opens and sucks them in.  I stuttered severely well into my 20’s.  If I was making gains for several weeks or months, it would take one incident of embarrassment about my stuttering to set it all off.  It was like a computer program that was saved on my hard-drive (my brain) would open and run automatically.  No matter how terrible I would feel about my stuttering, or how severely I would start blocking, it seemed so familiar and I felt helpless to it.  I would start avoiding and fearing the relapse.  I would slip right into the away-from patterns listed above.  I eventually learned strategies from the domain of cognitive psychology to handle this roller coaster.

Eventually, a pws can learn to use strategies to prevent going into the stuttering state.  Breaking out of the stuttering immediately is critical

To preventing relapse and regaining a resourceful state.  Most of the strategies can be used before, during, or after talking depending on the intention.  For example, the Drop-Down Through, Fifth Position, Foreground/Backgound, and others can be used in four different scenarios: 1) as a future pacing process early in the morning to manifest a resourceful speaking day, 2) when anticipating stuttering to remove anxiety, 3) during a speaking moment to relax and manifest fluency, 4) to re-imprint a moment of stuttering that the pws disliked.  I personally believe that re-imprinting past stutters is critical to remove time-line references that will in-turn reduce or eliminate anticipatory anxiety.  The table below offers a pws a practical resource to help habituate the use of strategies.

Get Started

Print off a minimum of 60-90 copies of the graph.  Plan on devoting 2-3 months in order to mind-to-muscle these strategies.  Take a 3-hole punch and put the graphs in a 3-ring notebook.  Review the neurosemantic strategies and get started.  Become active in the on-line discussion group for support and “pointers.”   Like all other self-improvement endeavors, some people may benefit from a personal coach.  Assess your “state” first thing in the morning.  If unresourceful and/or anticipating stuttering, pick a strategy and do it.  Mark the acronym on the graph and reassess your state (-10 to +10).  I highly recommend an early morning future pace strategy such as the meta-alignment.  As you move through the day take inventory of your state and use strategies as necessary.  Remember that it is essential to break state immediately after discovering a pre-stutter state or noting any negative thoughts or feelings after a stutter.  How do you know if a stuttering event warrants re-imprinting?  If when you begin to “run a movie” about it and actually feel discomfort, re-imprint right away.

Caveat:  You may become so good at running your brain that you manifest numerous wonderful things in your life.  If abundance, fluency, and feeling great scares you, discard this road map.

References

Hall, L. Michael.  (2000). Secrets of Personal Mastery. United Kingdom: Crown House Publishing

DAILY STATE MANAGEMENT

STRATEGIES

The following table contains a list of strategies and their acronyms.


ACRONYM
TERM5P =  5th Position

DDT = Drop Down Through

EFT =  Emotional Freedom Therapy

FG = Foreground/Background

FP = Future Pace

ACRONYM

TERM

MA =  Meta-Alignment

MQ = Miracle Question

MYN = Meta Yes/ Meta No

PT = Phobia Theater

RF = Reframing Self

ACRONYM

TERM

KDD = Kinesthetic Drop Down

TLR = Timeline Re-Imprint

SWP = Swish Pattern

GI = Guided Imagery

AWARENESS STATE

Enter the appropriate strategy acronym in the box that corresponds to your awareness state at a particular time.

+10
+9
+8
+7
+6
+5
+4
+3
+2
+1
0
-1
-2
-3
-4
-5
-6
-7
-8
-9
-10
5AM 6AM 7AM 8AM 9AM 10AM 11AM NOON 1PM 2PM 3PM 4PM 5PM 6PM 7PM 8PM 9PM 10PM 11PM MID-
NIGHT

Stuttering: When Attempted Solutions Become the Problem

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By Tim Mackesey PC, CCC-SLP

How is it that people who stutter develop body movements, look away during stutters, change words, avoid talking, and other maladaptive behaviors?  What motivates them to make these choices? These begin as attempted solutions but become habitual and develop into real problems and secondary symptoms.   How can we help them eliminate these behaviors?

Hank, a 4 ½ year-old boy, entered my lobby making a loud “huh” sound as he exhaled with great force and drama.  He was also saying “mmm” very loudly and making his pitch increase.  His eyes would look up to his right side and strain during these speech blocks.  After closer examination it was evident that Hank made the “huh” sound just before any word beginning with a vowel and the “mmm” sound just before any word starting with a consonant.  Anticipating a speech block as his larynx tightened, Hank used the “huh” or “mmm” as an attempted solution to prevent or escape the stutter.

Many preschoolers have developed what are called escape behaviors. In trying to escape the moment of stuttering and the physical tightening the child may blink his eyes, tap his foot, nod his head down, or similar signs of tension and struggle.

Preschoolers are quite capable of remembering problem words and avoiding them.  One 4 year-old I evaluated had abandoned the word “I” six months before I met him.  He was using his first name or “he” when referring to self.  His parents described months of chronic and severe blocking on “I” preceding his choice to eliminate the pronoun from his vocabulary.  When “he” became hard, the boy interjected “says” several times before “he.”  When you think about it, this avoidance requires a great deal of concentration and pre-planning of words.  His attempted solution became the problem.

Numerous speech games that involved saying “I” got rid of the problem and unleashed consistent fluency.

Adolescents, teens, and adults who stutter often have a long list of tricks designed to prevent stuttering.  One adult with the fear of asking for people and saying his own name on the phone had gathered his friend’s cell phone numbers.  That way he could connect directly with people and avoid what he feared.  This attempted solution only made the fear of asking for people and saying his own name grow in intensity.  A software engineer in a large four story office would email or walk to his co-workers offices.  He would never call them when they were at their desks.  If he had to call, he would leave voice mails during lunch or after hours.  He had learned which code to key in to re-record the messages until he was satisfied.  He rationalized his avoidance tricks by thinking his peers would perceive him as devoted or a workaholic when they noticed lunch and evening messages.

“Freedom is to speak.  And, I fear to form what is air (speech)
and may be made in a minute (a stutter.).  – Michael McClure

Fight or Flight

What is it about the experience of stuttering that people who stutter are so motivated to prevent and conceal stuttering?  Preschoolers feel the physical struggle of a stutter, their vocal cords adduct and tighten, and fight against it by pushing (blocking) or avoid and give up.  Being in Piaget’s Preoperational Stage of cognitive development (age 2-7), they do not remember stutters as traumatic and do not personalize stuttering like the child age seven and older.  How then must it feel inside to stutter that a preschooler may start changing words, use character voices, insert “uh um” just before a speech block, or verbalize frustration to their parents?

According to Guitar (1998), the Borderline Stutterer has mostly loose and relaxed disfluencies and rarely reacts to them.  The Beginning Stutterer has more tension and hurry in the stuttering.  Further, the Beginning Stutterer is aware of his difficulty and frustrated but does not yet have strong feelings about self as speaker (identity).  The Intermediate Stutterer – typically between the ages of 6 and 13- is starting to fear and avoid stuttering.   His classifications of stuttering development and severity take into effect physical/behavioral symptoms (i.e., tension in the moments of stuttering) as well as the cognitive and affective issues related to stuttering.

Once a child develops the identity of a stutterer she will often go into a defensive mode and try to conceal it.  Embarrassment and listeners reaction usually motivate this covert operation of hiding stuttering.  People who stutter demonstrate a higher level of cognitive anxiety than normally fluent speakers (DiLollo, et al 2003).

The Fight or Flight response is our body’s primitive, automatic, inborn response that prepares the body to “fight” or “flee” from perceived attack, threat, or harm to our survival.  Originally discovered by Harvard University physiologist Walter Cannon, this response is hard-wired into our brains and represents a genetic wisdom designed to protect us from bodily harm.  This response actually corresponds to an area of our brain called the hypothalamus, which- when stimulated- initiates a sequence of nerve cell firing and chemical release that prepares our body for running or fighting.  When we experience the Fight or Flight we feel a sensation of panic in our soma (body) as adrenaline, noradrenaline, and cortisol are released into our bloodstream.  The panicky sensations just before a stutter are similar to the Fight or Flight response.  When one understands and appreciates the intensity of this panic sensation in people who stutter he can then grasp how elaborate avoidance strategies are common.

When our actual physical survival is threatened, there is no better response than to have the Fight or Flight.  Unfortunately, we can assign a meaning of threat to a behavior called stuttering and experience the Fight or Flight response when stuttering or blocking is anticipated.  The young child can strongly dislike the experience of being unable to speak.  The adolescent, teen, and adults can remember painful moments of stuttering on time-line and perceive threat (i.e., embarrassment, shame, teasing, bombing a job interview, rejection from an attractive person, and so on) and fire off the Fight or Flight.  This phenomenon of remembering stuttered events and fearing future ones has led to stuttering being called a variant of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (Starkweather, 2003).

“Stuttering is everything we do trying to not stutter.” Wendell Johnson

Attempted Solutions

A text book would be required to list all the attempted solutions tried by people who stutter.  Here is a list of some of the most popular forms of Fight or Flight:

  • Movement of the extremities: arms, hand tapping, finger fidgeting, and foot tapping (or stomping).  Unfortunately, some of these are taught by well-meaning parents and professionals.  During the moment of blocking and tension the movements are not subtle and rhythmic as intended.  For example, a first grader who chronically blocked on words starting with /s/ was taught to put his hands in front of him and pretend he was pulling on a rubber band before starting the word.  As he experienced a speech block, his eyes rolled back in his head and his arms jerked bringing more attention to his stuttering and not helping him ease into the word.  The attempted solution created a glaring secondary symptom.  I showed him pictures of items beginning with /s/, had him rest his hands on his lap, notice the feeling of anticipation in his chest and throat, exhale slightly, and say the word.  Then I asked him do you need or want your hands to say /s/ words?  He said NO and we solved this problem.
  • Head movements:  I separated this from extremities because of all the directions the neck and head can go.  I have seen people who stutter nod their head as they force out a word, roll their head up and back, or jerk it to the side.  This attempted solution- which brings great attention from listeners- is to force the word out.
  • Eye contact aversion: this is the purposeful breaking of eye contact just before and during stutters.  I have seen it in self-conscious preschoolers and see it in nearly all teens and adults when I first meet them.  After interviewing several hundred people who stutter and avert eye contact, the positive intention (attempted solution) is to not see the listener reaction during the stutter.  These people remember listener reactions that they found unpleasant – sometimes teasing- and want to prevent seeing anything that resembles those moments.    However, when the person who stutters is feeling self-conscious and nervous, the stutter intensifies in a physical sense and the cognitive and affective issues are reinforced (Mackesey, 2002).  Listeners still see the stuttering and actually become uncomfortable since the person stuttering is looking away from them.  I have interviewed several people who don’t stutter and they reported starting to look away because they felt the person stuttering and averting eye contact wanted them to!
  • Escape behaviors: as mentioned earlier, these can include something subtle as eye blinks, but also include movement of extremities.  The person stuttering is trying to escape the shackles of the speech blockage.
  • Deep breaths: before I explain this one I want you to try an exercise.  Put your hand on your chest and count out loud to three without taking a breath first.  That’s right, just let your chest gently fall as the air and words come out.  Once you’ve mastered that, count to five.  Then I want you to rest and go to ten.  This is very easy- not rocket science.  After going to ten, you have proven the ability to say ten words without taking a breath!

Many people who stutter take a deep breath immediately before they manifest the speech block.  Some were taught to do it.  Unfortunately, when anxious the breath is high in the chest and not from the diaphragm. So, they feel a stutter coming and take a quick and deep inhalation with the positive intention of thrusting the word out without a stutter.  But again, the attempted solution becomes the problem. The extra air and force in a moment of panic about a   stutter is like pouring gasoline on a fire.

I help people “block the blocks.” This means they learn to feel the stutter, stop, relax, and begin the word as they gently exhale.  Remember, they have all the air they need for a word, phrase, or short sentence residing in their chest- it’s called residual capacity (Nicolosi, 1989).

It is understandable that the lay person observing blocking and apparent running out of air might say “take a deep breath.”  Scientists have discovered that the diaphragm and chest tighten during the Fight or Flight.

Not only is it unnecessary to take a deep breath, it is not suggested when the anatomy of the torso and larynx constricted and feeling like a panic attack.

  • Interjections and starters: In normally fluent speech there are “thinking um’s.”  In stuttered speech, you will hear sounds, words, and phrases inserted with the purpose of preventing stutters.  Specifically, when the person feels a stutter coming they insert unnecessary junk attempting to delay or avoid blocking.  This can habituate and become a very obvious and distracting symptom of stuttering.  One adult I met trained himself to say “well basically” or “honestly” up to eight times preceding a stuttered word.  Another closed his eyes and said “um” 58 times before attempting his name.  Since this reinforces fight and flight it is really stuttering; it is blocking to not block.  For a person to learn to manage the moment of stuttering he must remove interjections and starters.  When motivation, behaviors, and choices are designed around attempting to conceal stuttering, the results will always be a problem.
  • Word Changing: Another attempted solution becoming a problem is word substitution.  People who stutter can store in memory a number of words that they fear stuttering on. When I moved from Wisconsin to Atlanta with a real stuttering problem I would answer “up north” to inquiries of my home state. This only exacerbated the fear of stuttering.  If you want to be on the swim team, you have to get in the pool, right?  If you want to eliminate the fear factor on any given sound or word, you have to take it on and say it.  Many have reported ordering a food item based on what they feel they can say without stuttering instead of their desired food item. This is sad indeed.  Some have shortened wedding vows to eliminate “feared words.

I once met a man who bought a company that was named after a word he had never said before in his life. He began stuttering on the name of his new company.  Then he started circumlocuting, which means talking around the word (i.e., “um it is like in the media industry.”)  After several experiences of blocking when cold calling to sell his service he started requesting his secretary to call and ask for people and then patch him through on the phone at his desk.  Asking others to speak for us is enabling the problem.  Do you see how he developed a full-blown phobia in a matter of two months?

  • Avoiding all together: this category includes all the people who stutter who don’t raise their hand in class, don’t approach and introduce themselves, hang up when voice mail comes on, decline a role in a play, settle for jobs with less speaking, don’t call for a date, decline invitations to social activities where speaking to a stranger will happen, and a myriad of other avoidance strategies. The attempted solution in avoiding is to conceal, prevent, and/or not experience stuttering.  The term social anxiety is often used in describing the phobia-like experience in stuttering.
  • Phone tricks: along with public speaking, telephoning is one of the most common phobias of people who stutter.  Even with the invention of the internet, the phone and verbal communication is not going away.  I feel that the phone is a life skill!  Being able to call “911,” call for doctor appointments, call to set up job interviews, and the like are critical.
    I recently met a 40 year-old professional who reported re-recording voice mails up to 20 times in pursuit of a fluent message.  When asked his criteria for a success, he responded: “One with just a small stutter.”  He laughed when I asked if he times the stutters with a stop watch or uses biofeedback to measure acoustics and sound.  The real issue was his toxic belief: “If someone hears me stutter, they will think I am not competent.” He admitted imagining that people would play the message and scoff…or even share it with others.  These self-made mental movies full of mind-reading (Burns) drove his phobia.
  • Enabling: this problem disguised as a solution summarizes all the ways that well-meaning family members, teachers, and friends make the problem worse.  When a parent and teacher make special arrangements that excuse a child from speaking in class, do you think that reduces future fear?  No, this type of enabling ensures future fear in similar situations and also plants a limiting belief that sounds like this “Because of my stuttering, I can’t talk like the other kids….I need preferential treatment.”I once helped a college freshman who had dropped four out of five of his first semester classes. Why you ask? After finding out that oral participation was required he panicked and dropped 80% of his classes. Looking back to his high school experience, he had been allowed to deliver oral presentations on video for only the teacher to see and was excused from oral reading.  Of course his peers were never educated about his stuttering problem but perceived him to be exempt from responsibilities and expectations thrust upon them.  He got some teasing and disparaging remarks about it from time to time.  I am not saying that faculty should have announced his preferential treatment. I am saying he should have been coached and supported to make all the talks in front of his class.  The phobia that was enabled blew up in college.
  • Character voices:  several years ago I thought that comedian/actor Jim Carey had been cloned.  I had a number of young boys imitating his voice and mannerisms.  They had discovered that they could sound more fluent and make people laugh. This attempted solution becoming a problem had extra appeal – laughter and approval. Many preschoolers have discovered that whispering and character voice can seem to eradicate stuttering.  Since avoidance of stuttering is simmering under the surface, the tricks usually last for only a short time before a new one is needed.Some with severe and chronic stutters have reported being shocked after experiencing fluency in a school play or theater performance.  Stepping into a different character role, one that doesn’t identify himself as a stutterer, can sometimes manifest startling fluency. It is not recommended to speak in character voices to conceal stuttering. This attempted Jekkyl and Hyde existence is not healthy. It does raise questions about how a person, when not thinking about stuttering and rather focusing on a character role, can remove stuttering from his speech.

    Real Solutions

    In the Deep South there is an expression: “if you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you always got.”   The definition of insanity is to continuing doing the same thing over and over again but expecting different results.  Trying to not stutter- with all of its physical symptoms of struggle and avoidance tricks- is a recipe for insanity.   I did it for more than 20 years.

    Parents and speech-language pathologists (SLPs) have to intervene and assist young children as they abandon Fight and Flight.  Again, this is the best time to resolve stuttering since children have not developed stable memory and do not personalize stuttering and label themselves as older children do.  The leading-edge direct model I developed to stop stuttering in preschoolers is called F.A.S.T. Fluency, an acronym for Family And SLP Treatment for Fluency.  See www.stuttering-specialist.com

    After age seven there are usually cognitive and affective issues that compound the physical symptoms of stuttering.  SLPs have referred to this as the “ABCs of Stuttering”: Affect, Behaviors, and Cognitions.  I have found cognitive psychology strategies from Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP) to offer a modality for removing anxiety and fear.

    For example, NLP offers therapeutic strategies for “editing” memories of past stuttering events (Bodenhamer & Hall, 1999).  This is not brainwashing, rather it is changing the meaning the person assigned to the event.  One 13 year-old said: “I stuttered when I gave my oral presentation at school….all the kids thought I was stupid.”  This presuming to know what others think is called mindreading. Being convinced that others will think we are stupid if we stutter, could be just the cognitive distortion (Burns, 1989) motivating avoiding and word changing- flight.

    By taking the hurt out of old moments of stuttering, anxiety in the present and predictions of future problems are reduced until eliminated.  So, when you think about it,  NLP and cognitive psychology may be the solution for the PTSD and stuttering comparison.  If you remove anxiety from people who stutter, will they continue to attempt solutions like word changing, phone avoidance, point to menus instead of speaking, avoiding drive-thru-windows, and all the other maladaptive choices?  The answer is NO.  I have found that is possible to eliminate avoidance and other behaviors by integrating cognitive psychology into traditional speech pathology.

    Bibliography:

    1. Bodenhamer & Hall (1999).  The User’s Manual for the Brain, Volume I.  Wales, UK.  Crown House Publishing
    2. Burns, David (1989).  The Feeling Good Handbook.  New York, New York. Penguin Books. pp. 8-11
    3. DiLollo, Manning, and Neimeyer (2003).  Cognitive Anxiety as a Function of Speaker Role for Fluent Speakers and Persons who Stutter.  Journal of Fluency Disorders.  Volume 28, Number 3.  Elsevier Publications
    4. Guitar, Barry (1998).  Stuttering: An Integrated Approach to Its Nature and Treatment. Baltimore, MD.  Lippincott Williams & Wilkins. pp.110-126
    5. Mackesey (2002).  More Than Meets the Eye Contact Aversion. Perspective in Fluency Disorders.  April 2002.
    6. Nicolosi, Lucille (1989).  Terminology in Communication Disorders.  Baltimore, MD.  Williams & Wilkins.
    7. Starkweather (2003).  Stuttering as a Variant of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

    ISAD on-line conference.  www.stutteringhomepage.com

    Note: Bob Bodenhamer’s book Mastering Blocking & Stuttering: A Cognitive Approach to Achieving Fluency is now available. Click on the title to read more about the book and how to order it.

    Author

    Tim Mackesey, PC, CCC-SLP
    770-399-5455
    1874 Independence Square
    Suite B
    Dunwoody, GA 30388
    fluency@bellsouth.net
    www.stuttering-specialist.com

“How Did the Light Turn Green?” My Journey Towards Overcoming Stuttering

by

My Journey Towards Overcoming Stuttering

By Hazel Percy

The question “how did the traffic light turn green?” could well be the first line of a joke!  However, I find the traffic light a very apt metaphor to use when relating my journey towards overcoming stuttering.  My hope is that, as I tell my story, other people who stutter (PWS) will in some way find help and encouragement through what I share.

Red

I am 40 years old, married, live in the UK and have blocked and stuttered since early childhood.  Although mild to begin with, the problem grew in severity during my teenage years.  From that time on, I increasingly felt stuck on ‘red’ in many areas of my life, unable to move forward because of my fears around speaking.  As I stuttered in every speaking situation I was in (except when on my own, although that wasn’t always a totally block-free zone), I felt very restricted when considering my life choices.  For example, my choice of jobs was based not on my abilities or interests, but on how much speaking would be involved.  I chose the easy route of avoidance and consequently remained in jobs I often found boring, unfulfilling and ‘not really me’.  Whilst at work I would sometimes avoid making business phone calls and when I did pluck up the courage to do so, I found it embarrassing, humiliating and a considerable physical struggle to speak.

Social situations were difficult too, even in the comfort zone of my own home with close family and friends.  Many a time I would stay quiet when I had something to say, because I knew that as soon as I opened my mouth to speak, the physical struggle would begin, leaving me feeling emotionally and physically drained.  If I saw our next door neighbours out in their garden, I would often avoid speaking to them.  Either I would wait until they had gone back in, before going outside myself; or I might pretend that I hadn’t seen them, or that I was just too busy to speak.  What must they have thought!  It wasn’t that I wanted to be unfriendly; I just felt too embarrassed and scared to speak and stutter in front of them.

Soon after our first daughter was born, in June 1999, I clearly remember saying to my husband that he would have to read all the bedtime stories.  There was no way I could envisage myself being able to do it.  All in all, because of my stuttering, I saw myself as being ‘less than’ other people and inadequate as a person.  As a result of this, I would always push myself harder than necessary in other ways, to try to compensate for my lack of speaking ability.

Being an overt and relatively severe PWS did however have its advantages.  It mean’t that only on the odd occasion would I substitute a ‘difficult’ word for an ‘easier’ one.  To me, all words could be difficult to say, so most of the time I saw no point in trying to change them!  The only exception to that being our wedding day, when the fear of stuttering in front of so many people was so high.  On that occasion, the marriage ceremony was re-worded in such a way that all I had to say on my own was ‘I do’, then repeat some words in unison with my husband to be, which of course I had no difficulty in doing.

Being this way in the world gave me great motivation to try and change the way things were.  In my teens I had several sessions of traditional speech therapy, but these proved to be unhelpful.  Also, in my twenties I attended several courses in the UK run by someone who had overcome his own stuttering problem.  Although this was of some help, in that it allowed me to converse more easily with close family and friends, the speaking method I was taught was so abnormally slow that it was often impractical and difficult to use in real life outside situations.  Over time, I gradually let go of it and returned to my old ways.

However, in September 2000 when I was 34 years old, my life took a dramatic turn.  I heard about the McGuire Programme; a programme that addresses both physical and psychological aspects of stuttering, and felt that I should give it a go.  After all, I had absolutely nothing to lose.  It was during my first course that I believe I changed from ‘Red to ‘Amber’.

Amber

For me, the ‘Amber’ stage lasted nearly 5 years and was a time of change in many ways.  It was also a time of preparation, to enable me to change further and move on to ‘Green,’ or ‘Go’;  but more about that later.  Joining the McGuire Programme gave me the first taster I had had in years, of what life could be like without blocking and stuttering.  During the four day course I heard myself speaking with a freedom I had only dream’t about; not only in the ‘classroom setting’, but out on the streets with the general public and even public speaking in the town square!  For the first time since early childhood, I knew that I was physically able to say the exact words I wanted to say whilst in the presence of another person; and that was a strange and wonderful experience for me!  From that point on, I knew my life would never be the same again; and it wasn’t.

On returning home, I found that I was able to maintain my newly found freedom in a fair number of speaking situations.  However, at the same time I found it physically and mentally tiring to do so, and sometimes I would look at other ‘normal fluent speakers’ and wonder; “why do I have to use all this physical effort to speak, when others can speak so easily?”  Furthermore, despite my best efforts, I sometimes found it hard to maintain my newly learn’t technique in certain situations; and I didn’t understand why!

At the time, I believed that stuttering was caused by some sort of physical brain malfunction, and that controlling the physical behaviour was the only way forward.  Also I was pretty much oblivious to any thoughts I had prior to blocking.  Over the years, they had grown outside my conscious awareness.  Furthermore, although I always felt anxious and tense before and during blocking/stuttering, I in no way equated these as being contributory factors to the cause of the behaviour.  However, my eyes were soon to be well and truly opened when in 2003, I read John Harrison’s book ‘How to Conquer Your Fears of Speaking Before People’.

For me, John’s book answered a lot of questions about the nature of blocking and stuttering; and for the first time in my life, I changed the belief that my speech problem was being caused by some incurable brain disorder.  Instead, I came to believe that it was a self-supporting system (‘stuttering hexagon’) which I had created and sustained over many years.  John’s story of his own recovery and his unique insight into the problem, brought real hope to me that one day I could be completely free too!

Having been very inspired by John’s book, it also threw a spanner in the works for me. Knowing what I now knew, what course of action should I now take?  Should I change direction in my recovery?  After all, I was going along the road of controlling the blocking symptoms, but what if that wasn’t the right way forward for me?  And so began several months of inner conflict and turmoil as, with John’s support and help, I began to think this issue through.  Although I remained loosely connected to the McGuire Programme, I was very unsure of the right path to take.  Things came to a head in June 2004, whilst having a meal in a large room of 100 people or more.  Everyone seemed to be chatting away and having a good time; all except me.  There was I, sat at the table, feeling  frustrated and trapped; so afraid to be seen openly stuttering in front of people.  Something had to change – and soon!

Around that time I started looking on the internet, to see what else was ‘out there’ to help PWS and came across the Neuro-Semantic’s web-site (Neuro-Semantics for PWS).  I started reading the articles there about blocking/stuttering and was soon addicted to reading everything I could on the subject!  What I read made so much sense to me and furthered my understanding of blocking.

Tim Mackesey’s testimony particularly caught my attention and during the summer of 2004, I arranged to have several telephone consultations with him.  It was during these that I first started applying Neuro-Semantic/NLP patterns to my speech problem.  Tim led me through various patterns including the Drop Down Through and the Meta Yes/Meta No.  However, what I found most helpful at that time was Time-Line Re-imprinting.  Using this pattern I spent considerable time alone at home, reframing past hurtful memories of blocking.  I also gave any hurt I still felt in relation to these, to my highest spiritual resource, and forgave the other people involved for any hurt they had inadvertently caused me.  Of course I also needed to forgive myself; for I realised that more often than not, through my ‘mind-reading’, I had judged my listener far too harshly!

As a consequence of doing this, and with Tim’s help, I gradually began to change my perceptions of other people and in particular, of their reactions if I stuttered.  Also I decided to do an experiment.  Over several weeks, I telephoned numerous shops and businesses; making general and fairly short enquiries, whilst deliberately allowing myself to openly stutter.  The aim was to observe how my listeners reacted to my non-fluency.  I have to admit that I was amazed at the result!  Nine times out of ten, there was no reaction whatsoever.  People listened and appeared to be more interested in what I had to say, rather than how I was saying it!  The only reaction I did notice was the occasional ‘‘pardon’’, if they hadn’t quite caught what I’d said.  Similarly, I made several enquiries in local shops.  I always maintained eye contact throughout, smiled, looked as confident as I could, and said what I wanted to say. Again I allowed myself to openly stutter, and again people seemed to respect me and listened to what I had to say.

Also around this time, I enrolled on a public speaking course at my local college, which consisted of 30 evening classes held over a year.  My aim was to further desensitise myself to stuttering in front of a group of people.  As the course progressed, I discovered from the feedback I received, that I could come across as confident, relaxed and sound interesting, even though I stuttered.  My prior judgement of other people’s reactions to my stuttering had been totally wrong, and as a result, my perceptions changed.  Other people were simply other people, just like me, no doubt with their own worries and problems.  Of course, I know there is a minority of people in this world who aren’t so patient and understanding when faced with PWS (maybe through their own lack of knowledge about stuttering), but how they react is totally their responsibility.

When the sessions with Tim ended, I was again faced with the dilemma of what to do next.  I was still very much interested in Neuro-Semantics but was also very aware that I needed to uncover the negative thoughts, beliefs, perceptions and emotions that were underlying my blocking.  For at that time, I had very little idea what they were.  In due course I contacted John Harrison again, and via e-mail he helped to steer my thinking in such a way that I began to get a glimpse of what was really going on under the surface.  John also suggested that I join the ‘neurosemanticsofstuttering’ e-mail list.  So in December 2004 I subscribed; and wasn’t that the right decision!

And so began six months of very deep thinking!  I had so many questions to ask, and found that the answers I got from various people on the list were really insightful, helpful and very thought provoking.  Then came the night of January 8th 2005!  Lying in bed, it was as if the floodgates of my mind suddenly opened!  It felt as if a torrent of buried negative beliefs and perceptions about myself came rushing to the surface all at once.  Among other things, it became clear that I was always craving for other people’s approval of me (a sign of low self-esteem).  Also, I feared social rejection and felt inadequate as a person because I stuttered.  This process continued on and off throughout the night.  Of course I had to write it all down, so by the morning I felt a bit of a wreck!  I also felt quite overwhelmed by it all.  Here in front of me, was a huge mountain of negative ‘stuff’ relating to myself and my blocking that needed to be dealt with.  For a few moments I thought I was going to ‘lose it!’  But I managed to keep my sanity (I think J).  I realised that I needed to work through all of this with a therapist, and because Bob Bodenhamer and myself share the same Christian faith, I felt that I should approach him.

In due course I had several telephone consultations with Bob, over a period of five months. I realised that I had intertwined my identity as a person with my blocking and stuttering behaviour, and they needed separating.  During the sessions, Bob would often have me associate into a memory relating to blocking (sometimes from childhood), then lead me through the Drop Down Through Pattern.  I was utterly amazed at the negative thoughts, feelings and identity statements that came to mind, as I dropped down through each layer.  Some I didn’t even believe, until Bob explained that they were coming from the child part of me.  Then I applied my highest spiritual resource to each of the negative thoughts, feelings and identity statements.  As I did so, the latter disappeared and were replaced with positive and more powerful ones. I continued this process at home also, working through other memories as and when they came to mind.  In this way, my identity as a person gradually became separated from my blocking behaviour.  As a result of this, I realised that I was a person of worth no matter how I talked, and that I no longer needed other people’s approval of me.

Following on from the sessions with Bob, I continued to spend more time mentally in the presence of my highest resource.  As I did so, this new perception of myself was reinforced, and my self-esteem increased further.  But then I reached a point yet again when I wasn’t sure what the next stage was.  I now felt OK as a person and had positive beliefs about myself, even though I stuttered.  But I was still stuttering on most words,  although by this stage, the blocks were short and with very little tension.  Perhaps being a bit of a sceptic, I wasn’t convinced that the blocking behaviour would naturally fade away that easily!  I also began to miss hearing myself speaking relatively fluently at least some of the time.  So I decided to become more committed to the McGuire Programme again; a decision that I know was the right one for me.  Gradually, with the help of friends on the programme, I started to regain more fluency but I still felt there was something missing.

In September 2005, I attended Bob’s ‘Mastering Blocking and Stuttering Workshop’ in London.  It was excellent and as I listened to the teaching and took part in the group work, I realised that I had indeed changed on the inside.  It confirmed the fact that I had quite radically changed the beliefs about myself over recent months, and that my identity as a person was definitely no longer related to how I spoke.

I also found being led through the Power Zone Pattern really helpful.  It reinforced in my mind, the fact that I and I alone have control over what I think and feel, and how I behave and speak.  I also realised how important it was to give other people permission to own their powers too, instead of trying to ‘mind-read’ what they may or may not be thinking.  Although what other people thought of me was now no longer a key-issue in my life, it was good to be reminded of this.

At the workshop, I had the privilege of meeting John Harrison for the first time.  Over the past couple of years or so, he had got to know ‘where I was at’ speech-wise, and as we spoke he made the observation that I was holding myself back, particularly in relation to my volume.  Having had years of stuttering, I had grown accustomed to speaking in a fairly quiet voice (or not speaking at all!).  I usually didn’t want to be noticed or stand out in a crowd, especially when I spoke.  However, I didn’t think this had much significance.  To me it sounded natural to speak that way because I had always done it.  But I trusted John’s insight and so, at the end of one of the day’s sessions, I allowed him to lead me through a volume experiment, in front of a few of the other participants.  This involved doubling my volume several times and then observing my, and other people’s perception of how I was coming across.

I found that experiment immensely valuable.  I realised that my perception of how I sounded when I spoke was considerably different from other people’s.  I thought I was coming on too strong and too loud but they thought I just sounded more confident and more alive when I spoke.  I decided that after the course ended, I would start using a ‘bigger’ voice in the outside world and see what effect that would have.  I also realised that I needed to practise putting more expression into my voice.  Again, having stuttered for so many years, I had never developed this ‘skill’.  My only concern had been; “how do I get these words out?”  As a result, I had grown accustomed to talking in a rather monotone way.

Something else that John said during one of the sessions really struck a chord with me.  He emphasised that blocking could also be seen as a form of holding back, of sucking in one’s energy in an attempt to blend into the background and become ‘invisible’.  I recognised that this had certainly been true in my case over the years.  I had always had reservations about putting the ‘real me’ on show too much, even in non-speaking situations.  By this stage too, I had pretty much desensitised myself to blocking and stuttering in front of people.  I no longer felt embarrassed, and didn’t particularly fear doing it in front of people; yet the behaviour was still there, and it was an inconvenient way of expressing myself!

Of course the opposite of holding back is letting go, and I realised that by speaking in a louder voice, I would be doing just that.  But I now felt ready to take that next step.  So as I returned home, I turned up the volume!  At first it felt really strange and overly loud to me, but as I kept persevering with it over several weeks, I gradually got more used to it.  I also noticed that when I did speak in a louder voice, I felt more confident and actually found it easier to speak.  I then started to enjoy speaking in the new way and eventually reached the point of preferring it to the old!

With increased confidence, I decided it was now time to tackle the one and only speaking situation that I was still avoiding.  Since joining the McGuire Programme, I had more or less given up the practise of avoiding situations, though sometimes I postponed going into them!   However, there was one situation involving speaking in front of a particular small group of people, which I had been intending to go into for months.  Yet when the time came, I always ‘chickened out’.  I hadn’t been following through my intentions and I knew that this was having a negative effect on my ‘hexagon’.  So one evening I took the plunge; and as I did so, it wasn’t half as scary as I’d imagined.  In fact I quite enjoyed it and have been frequently entering and speaking in that situation ever since.  No more situation avoidance for me!  I was pleased with the progress I was making; yet just around the corner there was another surprise in store for me!

Last November, I went on my first McGuire Programme course in nearly five years.  Again I realised just how much I’d changed during that time.  I now felt much more comfortable speaking with people; not just people on the course, but absolutely anyone!  I also took on board two more tools.  During the course the instructor, Martin Coombs, emphasised the need to use ‘deliberate dysfluency’; that is, choosing to prolong the first sound of a word or words, or imitating a block, immediately releasing it and saying the word again.  The point of this was to advertise ourselves as people recovering from stuttering, but in a dignified and controlled way, without genuinely blocking.  As he spoke, I realised that I felt uncomfortable about doing that.  It was one thing to not mind stuttering in front of other people, but it was really ‘pushing the boat out’ to put in extra pretend blocks and stutters that wouldn’t normally be there!  But I realised the fact that I felt uncomfortable, indicated that I needed to do it!

Secondly, we were shown a way to deepen the tone of our voice whilst saying a word, which I found very helpful.  Although I was already aware of these two tools, I had never really put them into practice.  With these two extra tools now to hand, I returned home and started putting into practise what I’d learn’t.  It was then that I realised that during that course, everything had come together for me.  I had turned a corner and had changed from ‘Amber’ to ‘Green’, or ‘Go!’

Green

As I started to use deliberate dysfluency in every speaking situation and became even more open about my stuttering, I discovered just how empowering that was!  I was now in the driving seat.  I could choose to prolong or not prolong whichever sounds I liked.  Or I could imitate a block and release it, without experiencing the real, ‘out of control’ blocking.  It was so liberating and fun to do!  I was also outwardly demonstrating to people that I was someone who sometimes stutters, but in the way that I chose. I also discovered that I now had an insatiable desire to talk and talk and talk! J

As the days went by, I noticed that there was a consistency in the way I spoke.  I went into all sorts of situations and was able to maintain my new way of speaking most of the time.  Furthermore, I no longer found it the great physical and mental effort that I had five years ago.  This time round it felt a lot more natural and easier to me; I think, because of the internal changes that had taken place in my mind.

I started going along to Toastmasters and on the second occasion, was invited to take part in the table topics session.  I jumped at the chance!   I got up and spoke in front of 30 or so people I hardly knew, using deliberate dysfluency, and gave a short humorous talk.  My speaking was absolutely fine.  In fact I was even voted the best table topics speaker of the evening!  In December, I read out a poem in front of some 400 people at church.  Again, everything went great and I loved every minute of it!  And so it has continued.

Sometimes I have the occasional minor ‘hiccup’ here and there, but nothing serious and it in no way affects my everyday life.  If I do notice myself starting to hold back for whatever reason, I either reframe the situation while I’m in it, or analyse afterwards what was going on in my mind.  I always find that some slight approach/avoidance conflict had been going on.  Sometimes it has merely been the fact that as I’ve started to present myself differently in a speaking situation, I’ve been aware of displaying the ‘real Hazel’ like never before; and because that’s a fairly new experience for me, it’s felt uncomfortable.  As a result, I’ve sometimes had the slight tendency to try and block out those feelings by holding myself back.  However, I realise that I need to allow myself to feel uncomfortable; it is only a feeling!  Also, I know that the more I do this, the easier it will get.  Whatever the reason for holding back, I learn from the experience and then take whatever action is necessary the next time I’m in a similar situation.

As I look back over the past five years, I realise that at different stages, I’ve been addressing each point of my ‘stuttering hexagon’ and making each one more positive.  Neurosemantics in particular has played a key role in helping me to change my beliefs about myself, and my perceptions of other people.  At this point, I’d like to take the opportunity to thank Bob and Tim for all their help and for all that they do to help PWS.  I’d also like to thank John too, whose unique insight has tremendously influenced and helped me, particularly in the area of my perceptions and emotions.  And of course all my colleagues and friends on the McGuire Programme, who have helped, supported and inspired me in so many ways.

I’m very aware that this new way of speaking and presenting myself to the world continually needs to be reinforced day by day, so that eventually it becomes habituated and second nature.  Which is why I now enjoy pushing out my comfort zone and making the most of every speaking opportunity.  For example, whenever I’m in a shop I will usually start chatting with the shop assistant (providing there isn’t a long queue behind me!).  If I’m in a queue waiting to pay for something, I will often pass the time of day with the person in front or behind me.  And I love chatting with the parents at the school gate, when I pick my children up each day.

How different life is now!  Instead of waking up each morning with a sense of heaviness, wondering how I’m going to get through each speaking situation, I now wake up looking forward to enjoying speaking as much as possible.  At last, I am able to show other people my true colours!

© Hazel Percy, January 2006 hazelpercy@outlook.com

Life in the Business School How Self-therapy and Neuro-Semantics Changed my Life

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By Kau Valluri

Hello there! My name is ‘Kau’ (sounds like ‘Cow’) and I am a recovering PWBS. I will be sharing with you my journey to achieve fluency through a series of articles, the first of which I am publishing right now. I’d like to thank Bobby Bodenhamer for providing me a platform to share my experiences.

I am writing these articles for two reasons. One, I can learn more about myself and see how my view of stuttering/blocking changes with time. Two, I hope my stories will help other PWBS understand that they are not alone in their fight for fluency and give them a message of courage and inspiration. Please note that the published article is fourth in the sequence and the other articles will follow soon.

1) High School and College – How Wallowing in Fear and Anxiety had me Running Helter Skelter

2) Graduate School – How Speech Therapy improved my Outlook in life

3) Work Environment – How lack of self-confidence almost killed my Aspirations

4) Admission to Business Schools – How my “It Does not Matter How I Speak” Attitude changed my approach to interviewing

5) Life in the Business School – How Self-therapy and Neuro-Semantics changed my Life

It was Summer of 2004 in Austin, TX. I had been working at a semiconductor firm for over four years and I was frustrated. Frustrated, not with my job, but with myself. I was a successful professional with an active social life, but I was having trouble finding the sweet spot in my life. I was not content. I was smart, diligent and optimistic, but I felt that I could not get what I wanted. I attributed all my failures to dysfluencies(1) in my speech and I felt miserable in most speaking situations. I was at a loss of power. I felt inadequate. I was helpless.

I knew I had to take a long road to fluency, and I was hopeful. I was full of hope that I will see light at the end of the tunnel. I trudged on. Working as an engineer in the semiconductor industry is not easy, especially if you are a PWBS. The first few months on the job, my anxiety and fear took control of me. I kept to myself. I held back. As a result, I was viewed by my peers as ‘the quiet one’. As I got more comfortable around people at work, I started opening up. I had been closet stutterer for most part of my life and I was superb at substituting words. I was fluent with co-workers (and friends) 80% of the time. The rest of the time, I actively substituted. I was proud of my ability to substitute, but only later did I realize how detrimental this was to my fluency.

After working in this environment for over five years, I knew my ambitions lay elsewhere. I wanted to do something different; something that no-one had ever done before. I was very interested in exploring ways to harness the power of technology for the welfare of  farmers in developing countries. But being a PWBS, I feared I may not find success outside the comfort zone of my work. I was completely torn between my passion (to make a difference in developing countries) and my lack of confidence (because of blocking/stuttering).

At that time, it so happened that I was reading a lot of inspirational books written by business leaders. One of these happened to be ‘Straight from the Gut’ by Jack Welch. In this book, Jack mentions that he was a PWBS in his childhood and how he did not let that behavior affect his life. That clicked with me(2). I clearly saw how the lack of confidence in my speech relegated (!) me to positions that I was not happy with! Stuttering affected my life and I wanted to break this mold! I wanted to define my career and not let anyone or anything define it for me!

I had two options:

1) Stay in the rut and continue wallowing in my comfort zone

2) Face new challenges and be more satisfied

I knew if I break away from my ‘comfort zone’, life would be very challenging. But, then I thought, god has given me only one life and I had to make best use of it! So, I decided to go ‘straight with my gut feel’ :), however painful the process may be.

If I had to impact developing countries, I believed that I needed a sound business education. So, I gathered whatever little courage I had and applied to the top ten business schools in the U.S. With a lot of hard work, perseverance, support (from family and friends) and last but not the least, LUCK, I was invited to interview at 9 of the 10 schools. I was ecstatic! With ecstasy came anxiety!

Being a PWBS, it is hardly anybody’s guess what the one thing is that I was anxious about!…INTERVIEWING! I dreaded it.

My first interview was with Wharton School. I knew if I performed ‘decently’ in the interview, I will get an admission. So, I prepared day and night for the interview. I was ready for the standard 3 ‘Why’ questions:

1) Why MBA?

2) Why Wharton?

3) Why now?

Easy questions, right? Yes, if I’m practicing by myself and No, if I am being evaluated by an interviewer! I bombed the interview so bad I did not want to show my face to anyone else in the world! I remember to this day, I was not able to say even one word without blocking/stuttering. Yes, not even one SINGLE word!

I knew one of my dreams was dashed, but good for me, I had eight more! 🙂

The kind of guy that I am, I do not take no for an answer. So, I continued with my interviewing ‘nightmare’. Next was Yale. This was equally bad. Next, a phone interview with Cornell. Horrible! Kellogg- Bad. MIT- Horrible, Horrible! I saw my dreams crash one after another.

But, I persisted. In my eyes, there was no other alternative other than to accept blow after blow until I succeeded.

The next few months saw me interview with other schools and I soon realized that I was ‘hardening’ with each passing interview. My final interview with Columbia on Apr 12th 2005 was flawless!!! I went into the interview with a ‘It does not matter how I speak anymore‘ attitude and at the end of the interview, the interviewer said she was so impressed by me that she’d put in a special recommendation for me! Boy, my interviewing nightmare turned out into an adventure after all! Although I was not very happy with the process, I was happy that I took the initiative to play.

The upshot was that I was admitted to five of the top ten business schools in the U.S.! I accepted a position at the University of Chicago in May 2005 and have been in Chicago ever since.

So, what did I learn from this rich and rewarding experience?

I learnt that

1) Whatever the internal dialogue (chatter) in my mind, I have to pursue my dream and not let petty things like blocking/stuttering define my life. I will succeed if I look beyond these behaviors.

2) Being candid during the entire application process (that I am a PWBS) has done me more good than harm. I realized that hiding it is not a healthy idea after all!

3) Even though some people may have put me down because I am a PWBS, only I know what I am really capable of doing. As long as I believe in myself, that’s all that matters.

4) Changing perception about blocking/stuttering helps gain fluency. Going from an attitude of “Ohmigod, this is the most important interview, I should not stutter” to “It does not matter how I speak anymore” brought diametrically opposite results!

5) A better part of my speech depends on my breathing technique (prana). Meditation helps calm the mind.

6) Reading inspirational books and tapes motivate me and make me t.h.i.n.k!

7) I am more than the stuttering/blocking behaviors.

Notes:

(1) I had been a PWBS for nearly 15 years before I took up my job and had received conventional speech therapy at the UT speech lab.

(2) In March 2005, I had the opportunity of meeting with Jack Welch at a book signing at Ann Arbor. When I asked him how he overcame the stuttering, he said “My mom used to tell me that I stutter because I think faster than I can speak and my mouth could not catch up with the mind. She told me not to think about it. So, I never cared about my speech and I did not let it bother me. Soon after, it just went away!”

Winning the Inner Game

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by Winton Bates

“Performance equals potential minus interferences”: Tim Gallwey

Tim Gallwey suggests that neither mastery nor satisfaction can be obtained in playing any game without giving attention to the inner game – the game that takes place in the mind of the player.

Michael Hall writes:

“Tim Gallwey’s inner game books are about “ the Frames of Mind that enrich and support mastery and those that undermine and sabotage peak performance. What Gallwey, as a sports coach discovered in his work was the Inner Game that is so obviously a set of meta-states that provide the key state of mind for performance and excellence”.

I have found Tim Gallwey’s books to be helpful in dealing with personal performance problems that most people would not consider to have anything to do with playing games. I keep going back to these books for inspiration.

Why? I think it is partly because sporting metaphors pervade our language and thinking. For example, people do not have to have a strong interest in sport to know what it means to be told to “ keep your eyes on the ball”. We don’t even have to be able to see a ball to know what that means.

But there is also a more fundamental reason. I think sporting analogies help me to see my problems in perspective. When I acknowledge that a problem that I experience is similar to something that, for example, a golfer might describe as “choking” or “yips”, it no longer seems to be so bewildering and uniquely threatening. When considering whether the advice that Gallwey gives to golfers or tennis players might be relevant to me I am thinking constructively about possible solutions.

Gallwey’s Self 1/ Self 2 model provides a simple way to consider how self-interference can adversely affect many aspects of performance. As I discuss later, however, Gallwey’s terminology has some limitations.

This article is about my own experience over the last couple of years in applying inner game concepts. I begin by describing some aspects of my personal history. Then I briefly discuss the inner game basics before describing aspects of Gallwey’s writings that have been particularly helpful to me. This is followed by discussion of Gallwey’s concepts of Self 1 and Self2, and Michael Hall’s concept of frame games.

Personal background

I am now 60 years old. Some people say that I am semi-retired, but I don’t feel anywhere near my “use by” date. From my own perspective I am just enjoying more leisure. In most respects my life has been happy. I am married and have three grown up children who are making a success of their lives. I have had an interesting and successful work career as an economist working within government in Australia and New Zealand and as a private consultant.

However, I have had some problems. As a child I developed a severe stutter. In many situations I was unable to say more that a few words without blocking. My speech improved greatly during my teen years and these improvements were largely maintained. I was reasonably fluent in most situations but I often blocked at those moments when I was trying hardest to speak fluently. As far as possible I avoided public speaking.

When I was about 30 years old a muscle spasm began to occur on the right side of my face. According to neurological advice this hemi-facial spasm (HFS) has a physical rather than psychological cause (compression of the facial nerve) and is not related to stuttering. At the time it developed, however, it felt just like having to learn to live with stuttering all over again. But the spasm was there nearly all the time, whether I was talking or not, and even when I was alone. I felt as though I was falling apart.

What followed, over about 30 years, was a long search to restore inner harmony. I sought help from a lot of different people and tried a long list of things – including relaxation therapy, yoga, biofeedback, pharmaceuticals, herbal remedies, micro-surgery, botox, the Alexander technique, meditation and NLP. Some of these things helped a little.

Since I found Neuro-Semantics (NS) – and Tim Gallwey’s inner game books – in 2002 there has been a substantial improvement in many aspects of my life, including fluency and my attitude to HFS. It would not be possible to calculate what proportion of improvement is attributable to my study of Gallwey’s books rather than to other important influences, including the NS matrix model. The way I see it, Gallwey’s books have reinforced many of the things that I have learned through NS.

Inner game basics

Tim Gallwey’s books about the inner game of tennis, skiing, music and work were published over the period from 1972 to 2000. Gallwey presents findings based on his own experience.

Main points

  • Every activity involves an outer game and an inner game – the inner game is played in the arena of our minds.
  • Performance equals potential minus interferences. Self 1 (the conscious part of us that makes judgements and issues instructions) tends to interfere with the ability of Self 2 (our unconscious natural self) to perform according to potential. In other words we have a tendency to struggle with ourselves.
  • Many of the sources of interference have to do with internal communication and the judgements we make about ourselves based on our past performance. For example, we tend to interfere with our natural learning ability when we:
    • tell ourselves to try harder rather than allow ourselves to use the right amount of effort;
    • give ourselves too much technical instruction about how to avoid errors, rather than trusting our natural ability;
    • make judgements about our performance eg telling ourselves how terribly we are playing; or
    • identify ourselves with poor previous performance eg by branding ourselves as losers etc.
  • We can avoid self-interference by giving our conscious minds things to do. For example:
    • keeping the conscious mind occupied with some harmless activity while the unconscious mind gets on with the job of muscle coordination (eg Gallwey’s “bounce-hit” suggestion for tennis and his corresponding “back-hit” for golf keep the conscious mind harmlessly occupied in maintaining awareness);
    • learning through awareness by just noticing how it feel when you hit the ball and where the ball goes without making judgements; and
    • getting the clearest possible picture of your desired outcome – what it looks like, feels like and sounds like.
  • If we learn to harness our natural ability and to trust ourselves we can achieve a lot more in everything we do than when we struggle with ourselves.

My experience in playing the inner game

I was introduced to Gallwey’s inner game books soon after I joined the “neurosemanticsofstuttering” email list in 2002. Some members of the list had read some of Tim Gallwey’s inner game books at the suggestion of John Harrison, a recovered stutterer and active participant on this list. Harrison regards The inner game of tennis among the ten books that he has found most helpful (Harrison, 2002, p 316).

Relying on instinct

One of the most important lessons I have learned from Tim Gallwey’s books is the impossibility of achieving skilled performance in physical activities by attempting to control muscular activity by conscious mental effort. In my view this quote about the golf swing illustrates the point magnificently:

“The golf swing is a most complicated combination of muscular actions, too complex by far to be controlled by objective conscious mental [Self 1] effort. Consequently, we must rely a good deal upon the instinctive [Self 2] reactions acquired by long practice. It has been my experience that the more completely we can depend upon this instinct – the more thoroughly we can divest the subjective mind of conscious control – the more perfectly can we execute our shots …” (“The Inner Game of Golf”, p 42).

Substitute the word “speech” for “the golf swing” and the statement remains equally true.

The mention of practice is also relevant. Practice of fluent speech, by reading aloud to myself, helped me to reassure myself that I could trust myself when speaking. When practice was first suggested to me (by Don Mowrer) I tried it without any expectation that it would be much help. But I found that I liked doing it and that it had carry-over benefits in terms of greater fluency in speaking in more stressful situations. I still sometimes read aloud to myself when I feel the need to reassurance that I have the capacity to speak with normal fluency.

Listening to the ball

In October 2002, when reading The inner game of tennis I became excited about something Tim Gallwey wrote about the benefits of listening to the ball:

“One day when I was practicing this form of concentration while serving, I began hitting the ball unusually well. I could hear a sharp crack instead of the usual sound at the moment of impact. It sounded terrific and the ball had more speed and accuracy. After I realized how well I was serving, I resisted the temptation to figure out why, and simply asked my body to do what ever was necessary to reproduce that ‘crack’. I held the sound in my memory and to my amazement my body reproduced it time and again” (p 82).

That started bells ringing for me. It occurred to me that when I blocked I was never thinking about what sound I want to produce. If I was thinking about speech my thoughts were more likely to be about the possibility that I might not produce the sounds I wanted to produce. In terms of the tennis analogy this would have to be like holding an image in mind of where I do not want the ball to go and telling my body not to hit it there. It is not hard to guess where the ball would be likely to go.

I felt the urge to develop a strong sense of what I wanted to sound like when I spoke so could access that memory whenever I wanted it. In fact, I went further than this to get a good picture in mind of what it felt like, looked like and sounded like for me to be having fun speaking fluently in situations that I would previously have regarded as stressful.

The results were so amazing that I felt encouraged to join Toastmasters in order to confront my fear of public speaking.

Recalling the exhilaration

One of my earliest experiences in NLP, over five years ago, was to use a childhood memory of the exhilaration of riding my bike down a hill and over a ramp. I used this as an anchor in facing a particular fear related to speaking. As a result of previous experiences of blocking I had developed a phobia for meetings that begin with introductions around the table. I hated the feeling of tension building up as I waited my turn to say a few words about who I was, who I represented, why I was there etc.

The memory of riding my bike over the ramp worked well enough, in the sense that it enabled me to speak without blocking. But I felt excessively hyped up as I was speaking and probably came across that way to other people.

I was impressed by what Tim Gallwey wrote about recalling the exhilaration in The inner game of golf:

"At some point you have to let go and trust [yourself] under pressure. It always feels a bit risky when we let go, but to do so under pressure feels downright dangerous. It is also more exhilarating. The only way I can make myself let go is by recalling the exhilaration of taking the risk of truly trusting myself. Of course, there are occasional poor results, but mostly I experience these when I chicken out at the last minute and allow Self 1 to take over control of the swing." (p113)

I now like to recall the exhilaration of previous experiences of letting go while speaking. My anchor is the memory of allowing myself to speak in the way I want to speak. I now know what that sounds like and feels like.

Associating with the easy

In The inner game of golf Tim Gallwey suggests that just before playing a ball it helps to imagine doing something easy like throwing a ball, so you can say to yourself “this is easy” (pp 67-70). Gallwey includes a substantial discussion of how to choose an appropriate anchor to use, but I need not go into that.

It occurred to me when I read this in November 2002 that an appropriate gesture to make prior to speaking is to open my hand and move it away from me, accompanied by the thought “this is easy”. This gesture has become part of what I do when I have the intention to trust myself while speaking.

Circumventing self doubt

During my teen years I discovered that I was fluent whenever I had my mind full of positive thoughts about myself and other people. This helped me greatly at the time but it didn’t seem to provide me with a basis for complete recovery.

Why not? Looking back, I think the main problem was the interpretation I was placing on the remaining disfluency. Any stumble, no matter how small, seemed to have great significance. It meant that I had allowed self doubt to enter my mind. I had not tried hard enough to convince myself that I could speak fluently. But the harder I tried to be positive the more self-doubt seemed to intrude into my thinking. After a while I stopped trying to fill my mind with positive thoughts and just focussed on what I wanted to say. That seemed to work better, but self doubt always seemed to be lurking in the background waiting for me to become self-conscious about speaking.

Tim Gallwey has some perceptive things to say about positive thinking and self doubt in The inner game of golf. He suggests that:

” …when we try to develop self-confidence by positive thinking – ‘I’m going to hit a great golf shot, I’m going to hit a great golf shot’ – we are disguising a deeper self doubt. Anyone who tries to talk himself into something does so because at heart he doesn’t really believe it” (p. 181).

After further discussion, Gallwey suggests: “What is needed is not to fight negative programming but to simply circumvent it” (p 182).

Gallwey goes on to suggest that programming can be circumvented through “what if” thinking. He describes he asked a golfer with an awkward golf swing: “How would you like to be able to swing?” When the golfer started to explain, Gallwey said: “No, don’t tell me, show me”. The golfer was immediately able to demonstrate a better swing. After some further coaching he realised that he was able to choose to swing the club the way he would like to be able to swing it (p 183).

Similarly, when I have practiced speeches using a tape recorder I demonstrated to myself how I would like to be able to speak. And when listening to myself I have realised that I can choose to speak the way I would like to be able to speak.

I have also received a lot of help from Neuro-Semantics (NS) in dealing with self-doubt. One of the most important lessons I have learned is to accept that the state I am experiencing at any moment is just whatever I am experiencing. If I feel self-doubt, then I can ask myself what specific doubt do I have? Is this an idea that I wish to confirm or disconfirm? I have been greatly helped by the “Meta-Yes/Meta-No” pattern, developed by Bob Bodenhamer and Michael Hall. If the suggestion comes to my mind that I am not able to say a particular word I don’t have to beat myself up for allowing that thought to enter my mind. All I need to do is to reject it with all the emotion that I felt when I rejected the most repulsive thought that anyone has ever suggested to me. I also affirm my capacity to say any word, any time, anywhere with all the positive emotion that I felt the first time I did the “Meta-Yes/ Meta-No” pattern.

Welcoming the yips

I didn’t know what “yips” were until I typed the word into a search engine and read some articles on the internet. “Yips” is a term used by golfers to describe involuntary muscle movements – freezing, jerking and tremors – while putting. Anyone who has read much about stuttering would be struck by parallels between research on yips and stuttering. Some people argue that “yips” is a physiological problem and is distinguishable from “choking”, which is a psychological problem.

Tim Gallwey writes:

“If when addressing the ball you start remembering previous yips, you’re only increasing your chances of yipping this time. Even a lot of practice swings won’t help” (The inner game of golf, p 142).

When I read that a couple of years ago I thought, Yes, I know all about the yips – even though I had never heard the term used before. I recalled moments when I was speaking where I would see particular words coming and remember previous times when I blocked on similar sounding words. I knew only too well that when I started remembering previous yips I was only increasing my chances of yipping. How could I resist the yips?

Gallwey’s advice:

“Don’t resist. Resisting doubt strengthens it; I’ve seen it happen not just in people’s games but in their lives. Better than resisting is ignoring, and the best way to ignore doubt is to become absorbed in something else.”

That seems like good advice: focus your conscious mind on what you intend to say and how you intend to sound as well as on things like eye contact and gesture – and allow your unconscious mind to take care of the details of articulation without interference. That is how the speaking process is meant to work. I can do that most of the time.

But, what do if fear of the yips keeps coming back into your mind?

Gallwey suggests:

“If you can’t find any exercise strong enough to keep the yips from barking at your door, as a last resort you can do what I did: welcome them.”…”Welcoming yips, I say to them say to them, Okay if you want to yip, go ahead and yip; I’d like to see how you do it. Yip as much as you like – I’ll be right here watching and feeling exactly what happens. In effect I’m saying you can’t scare me.” (p 143).

Welcoming the yips seemed to me to be very challenging. How could I possibly welcome doubts about my ability to use my powers of speech?

When I thought about it, however, I decided that I could welcome those thoughts because I could trust myself to respond appropriately to them. It is better to bring doubts into the open and reject them explicitly rather than to leave them lingering around in the back of my mind. So, when the yips come around I try to remember the old tune yippidee doo da, yippidee aye. (I’m sorry about that. Some things that go on in my mind would probably be better kept private.)

Expressing qualities

In November 2002 I began thinking that it was desirable for me to have an explicit speech goal in mind to avoid falling back into the trap of setting up “trying not to stutter” as my speech goal. As John Harrison and others have explained “trying not to stutter” involves an inherent conflict of intention.

The goal I came up with was “unrestrained self-expression”. What this meant to me was not only being aware of my power of speech as a personal resource but also having the intention of revealing my self to others through my speech. I don’t have to have this goal at the front of my mind in order to speak fluently. But it is marvellous to remember those times when I have been willing to let my guard down and open up.

Tim Gallwey’s discussion of expressing qualities seemed relevant to me in considering what unrestrained self-expression might involve. In The inner game of golf Gallwey suggests that we recognise that some of the desired quality we want in whatever we are doing is already there within us. It is just a matter of giving expression to that quality.

Tim Gallwey’s suggests that once you have chosen what quality you want to bring to a particular experience it is a good idea to search your memory for an image that expresses it and to “hold the image rather than the word in your mind as you swing” (p 186). I have tried that and I know it works. Unfortunately, I did not follow through this idea of expressing qualities as conscientiously as I should have at the time.

I was strongly reminded about expressing qualities in August 2004 when I read Beca Lewis’s book, Living in Grace. As I read that book I immediately got back the awareness that, no matter how things might appear on the surface, all the inner harmony, peace of mind and every other quality I have searched for is here with me right now. This is a frame of mind that is available to me whenever I open my mind to it.

Identity frames and frame games

Tim Gallwey’s views about Self 1 and Self 2 evolved over time. In The inner game of tennis, Self 1 was described as “the conscious teller” and Self 2 was described as “the unconscious, automatic doer” (p 18). At the end of this book he also mentions the possibility of discovering Self 3, “the very source of all our potential” (p 128).

In The inner game of golf, Self 2 is identified as “the total human organism, the natural entity”. Self 1 is identified as “the source of our interference with our natural selves” Self 1 “does not actually have a physical existence”. It was recognised to be “a composite of different ego-personalities that would surface at different times”. The aim of the inner game was seen to be “to decrease the Self 1 interferences that prevent Self 2 from expressing himself fully” (pp 33-34).

In The inner game of work, Self 1 is described as “an invented self or mental construct” while “Self 2 is the self we were born with, the created self (p 116). In this book Gallwey acknowledges explicitly “the part of Self 2 that is capable of conscious and purposeful thought” (p 119).

While clearly an admirer of Tim Gallwey’s contributions, Michael Hall suggests that the Self 1/ Self 2 model is “very clumsy and awkward both conceptually and linguistically”(Hall, 2003). I agree.

Gallwey’s key ideas can be conveyed more simply using Hall’s conceptual framework. Hall argues that we cannot not play games:

“With every mood, attitude, behaviour, skill, role, ritual, etc that we experience, we play out some game. The question now becomes, ‘What game are you playing?’ And when we ask that, it will do us well to also ask, “Does the game enhance our lives and empower us for living more effectively?’

Hall goes on to explain that “our games are determined by our mental and emotional frames”. “The frames involve our ideas, thoughts, beliefs, understandings, decisions, learnings, etc. To play any game, you have to operate from a certain frame of mind” (Hall, 2000, p 9).

Some frames permit natural self expression and some interfere. It is as simple as that.

Some of the frame games that Michael Hall describes are similar to inner games described by Tim Gallwey. One example is the ‘self-acceptance frame game’. Hall suggests that to play this game “begin from the idea and feeling that your dignity and human worth are unconditionally given. There is nothing to prove, nothing to earn, nothing to become.” (p 243).

When I am playing the self-acceptance game I keep coming back to something Tim Gallwey wrote:

“What I really am precedes any thoughts I may have has about myself. … When I acknowledge this self, I can give it credit for every quality, feeling, thought, urge, and behavior that is truly genuine and excellent. I have no trouble acknowledging the magnificence, kindness and power of whatever created such beings. At those times … I am content to be myself and have nothing to prove to myself or anyone else”. (“Inner game of work”, p 117).

I think that is what natural self expression is about. It is about being myself – and having nothing to prove to myself or anyone else.

Summing up

Tim Gallwey’s books have helped me to see my problems in perspective. Recognising that tennis players and golfers experience similar problems of self-interference has helped me to think constructively about solutions.

Tim Gallwey’s books have reinforced several lessons for me:

  • Let go of judgement about past performance. You are not your performance.
  • Trust yourself. Let go of trying to control speech and other complex muscular actions through conscious mental effort.
  • Use your imagination. Have the clearest possible picture of what it sounds like, looks like and feels like to be having fun while speaking fluently.
  • Recall the exhilaration of letting go and trusting yourself.
  • Remind yourself that speaking is easy.
  • Demonstrate to yourself that nothing stops you from speaking the way you want to speak.
  • Don’t leave self doubt lingering in the back of your mind. Bring your doubts into the open – so that you can reject them explicitly.
  • Express qualities. Find an image that represents the quality you want to bring to your experience and bring that image to mind as you speak.
  • Remember that natural self-expression is about being your self and having nothing to prove to anyone.

Tim Gallwey’s books taught me that performance equals potential minus interferences. But they have also helped me to understand that the purpose of the game is actually realisation of potential – liberation – rather than improvement of performance. The name of the game is unrestrained self expression.

References

Bodenhamer, Bobby G ‘The Meta – YES and NO Pattern‘, Anchor Point, June 1998.

Gallwey, W Timothy, 1975, The inner game of tennis, Pan Books, London.

Gallwey, W Timothy, 1981, The inner game of golf, Pan Books, London.

Gallwey, W Timothy, 2000, The inner game of work, Texere, New York, London.

Hall, L Michael, 2000, Frame Games, Neuro-Semantics, Grand Junction, CO, USA.

Hall, L Michael, 2003, ‘Meta-States and the Inner Game’, Anchor Point, February.

Harrison, John, 2002, How to conquer your fears of speaking before people, National Stuttering Association, USA.

Lewis, Beca, 2002, Living in Grace, Perception Publishing, Encinitas, CA, USA.

About Winton Bates

Winton Bates is 60 years old. He is married with three grown-up children.

He lives with his wife in Canberra, Australia. They have plans to move to the coast (Vincentia, New South Wales) at some stage during 2005, after building a new house there.

Winton is an economist. He worked for 26 years in the Australian civil service in agencies involved in economic research. He held a senior management position for about 10 of those years before resigning in 1993 to take up a two year contract with the New Zealand civil service. After that, Winton fulfilled a long-standing ambition to become an economic consultant.

Most of Winton’s work over recent years has been on public policy issues related to economic growth. His current work revolves around changes in attitudes toward economic growth in high income countries. Contrary to assertions that people have an insatiable appetite for higher incomes, Winton’s recent research suggests, on the basis of evidence from attitude surveys, that the priority that people give to economic growth tends to decline as incomes rise (‘Is economic growth given too high a priority?’, Policy, 20 (4), Summer 2004-05).

Winton’s introduction to NLP occurred in the early 1990s at a work training session on negotiation skills. After that his interest was sporadic until he joined the “neurosematicsofstuttering” email list in 2002. Soon after that he attended one of Michael Hall’s APG trainings (in Sydney, Australia). That was when he developed a serious interest in NS/NLP. He plans to do more NS training in the not too distant future.

Over the last year Winton’s main leisure interest, apart from Toastmasters, has been establishment of a new garden on the site where he and his wife are planning to live. He has plans to play golf regularly (more than once a year) at some stage, but he could well end up giving other interests higher priority.

Winton Bates
Economic Consultant
67 Erldunda Circuit
HAWKER ACT 2614
Australia.

Phone: 61 2 6254 7899
Mobile: 0411 234996

Winton_Bates@msn.com.au

Mastering Blocking & Stuttering – Presentation Handout for National Stuttering Association – June 2003

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Presentation Handout for National Stuttering Association – June 2003 Nashville Tennessee by Bobby G. Bodenhamer

The “Structure” of Blocking & Stuttering

Looking at Blocking & Stuttering Through the Eyes of Neuro-Semantics®

June 27, 2003

Nashville, Tennessee

Bobby G. Bodenhamer, D. Min.
Presenter

“John, say you have times when you stutter?”

“Yes, there are times when I do; but; most of the time I am OK. I speak fluently at home and around my friends.”

“So, John, when do you tend to block the worse?”

“I am worse at work.”

“I understand. So, you block worse at work.  What is there about being at work that causes you to block?”

“Well, I am not quite sure. I just know when I am at work, I am uncomfortable.”

“So, you are uncomfortable at work? What is there about being at work that makes you uncomfortable?”

“I guess it is my boss primarily. He makes me uncomfortable. I suppose if I were honest about it I would say that I am really afraid of him?”

“Oh, so you are fearful of your boss man? What is there about him that causes you to choose to be fearful of him?”

“Yes, I am fearful of him. In fact, when I am around anyone who is in authority over me, I get nervous and fearful.’

“So, it is really about being fearful of authority figures in general and not just your boss man?”

“Yes, that is right.”

“When you think of your boss and being fearful of him, where in your body do you feel that fear?”

“I feel it in my upper body – especially in my chest, throat and in my jaws.”

“Very good. Now, when you block, where do you feel the block?”

“In the same place. It is the same feeling.”

“So, when you are not at work and are speaking fluently, how do your chest, throat and jaw feel?”

“Oh, I feel fine then. I am relaxed. I don’t even think about how I am speaking. I just feel relaxed and focus on what I am talking about and enjoying the conversation with the other person.”

“So, if you didn’t fear people in authority, what would happen to your blocking and stuttering?”

“Well, it would go away, wouldn’t it?

John was one of the first persons who blocked and stuttered that I worked with therapeutically.  We found that the origin of his fear of authority came from his relationship with his father when John was just a lad. We accessed some higher adult resources of John’s and he applied those resources to his old childhood memories of fearing his father. The fears disappeared and with them, so did the blocking and stuttering. The most powerful learning for John was that he was bringing blocking and stuttering on himself. He determined to fix that problem which he did.

In our work in Neuro-Semantics®, we have discovered that the primary drivers of blocking and stuttering are cognitive (thinking) in nature and not physical or certainly not genetic. Now, we are not saying that genetics and psycho-motor problems early on may have played a role in the development of a stutter; but, they are not the primary cause of its continuation. It is the deeply unconscious thinking patterns that developed around the stuttering that have locked the behavior in.  Successful treatment will involve addressing these thought patterns.

How do people who block and stutter lock in the childhood disfluency into an ongoing adult problem? Our work has indicated that it is the meanings surrounding blocking and stuttering that in fact lock it in and make it so difficult, but not impossible, to change. Indeed, I have known several people who blocked and stuttered; who, through proper therapy, gain total fluency by removing the unconscious meanings they had built around blocking and stuttering.

Some questions for your consideration:

  1. How is it that many PWS can speak fluently in some contexts and not speak fluently in other contexts?
  2. When a person speaks consistently fluent in one context but not others, what does this imply about the causation and continuation of blocking and stuttering?
  3. How can the primary causation and continuation be physical?
    (We do believe that at its onset, blocking & stuttering could have physical components.)
  4. How can the primary causation and continuation be genetic in nature?
    (We do believe that genetic predisposition could have contributed to the beginning problem but not its continuation. See Bruce Lipton’s The Biology of Belief.)
  5. If you were not fearful of looking like a fool or being vulnerable because of your blocking and stuttering, how would that affect your blocking and stuttering? (Other and Power Matrices)
  6. If you had a healthy view of yourself as an innate person of worth in spite of how you speak, how would that affect your blocking and stuttering? (Self Matrix)
  7. If you felt in control of your speech all the time as you do when you are fluent, how would that affect your blocking and stuttering? (Power Matrix)
  8. If you were able to rid yourself of the belief – “I have always blocked and stuttered in certain context which means that I always will,” what would happen to your blocking and stuttering? (Time Matrix)
  9. If you were not fearful of the judgments of other people about how you speak, what would happen to your blocking and stuttering? (Other Matrix)
  10. If you viewed the world you live in as a warm, inviting, friendly and supportive place rather than a place to be feared and to always be on your guard about, how would that affect your blocking and stuttering? (World Matrix)

The Matrix Model

In explaining how we believe that blocking and stuttering are structured in the mind-body system, I will utilize the model developed by my colleague, L. Michael Hall, Ph.D. Borrowing from a term of mathematics and the title of the movie by the same name, Michael calls the model  “The Matrix Model.”  The model provides a fantastic tool for organizing all of Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) and Neuro-Semantics under seven simple headings. I will use it here for a brief (and over simplified) description of just how we believe blocking and stuttering are created.

How is blocking and stuttering structured in the mind?  It is structured like any other thought-feeling-behavior. It all begins with the meanings that we give events. The word “meaning” comes from a German word “to hold in mind.” What meanings do people who block and stutter typically “hold in mind”?  We shall be considering those.  The Matrix Model provides seven areas for us to divide the various meanings given to any behavior.  The first one listed is the area of “meaning” which we list first because it is “meaning” that determines how we describe the other matrices of our experiences.

In summation, the matrices are:

  1. We begin with Meaning which is the determinant of:

2.                  Your concept of your Self.

3.                  How you understand your sense of Power and Resourcefulness.

4.                  Your relationship with Time.

5.                  Your relationship with Others.

6.                  Your view of the World you live in.

7.                  Your understanding of your higher Purpose and Intentions.

Ask yourself:

  1. What does “blocking and stuttering” mean to me? (Meaning Matrix)
  2. What do these meanings say about me as a person?  (Self Matrix)
  3. What do these meanings say about my sense of power and resourcefulness in relationship to how I speak?  (Power and Resource Matrix)
  4. What do these meanings say about how I view my relationship with time in the context of how I speak?  (Time Matrix)
  5. What do these meanings say about my relationship with others in regards to how I speak?  (Others Matrix)
  6. What do these meanings say about how I view the world I live in? Do I view the world as a safe or unsafe place? Do I view it as a friendly or unfriendly place?  (World Matrix)
  7. Because I am a person who blocks and stutters, what is my purpose/ intent/ outcome in regards to how I speak?  (Purpose and Intentional Matrix)

Figure 1
The Matrix Circle


For sure, you never leave home without your “Matrix” filled with all these and many more frames of mind.  Your Matrix gives you your model of the world through which you navigate through life.  If you view yourself as a person of worth with innate powers to navigate the world in which you live, you will live your life one way. If, however, you view yourself in a negative light and with little or no power to navigate your world, you will live your life in a totally different way.

Your Matrix to a large degree determines how you live and experience life. We believe that these seven key matrices determine all the other matrices of our mind (beliefs, values, understandings, etc, i.e. all of our thinking patterns both conscious and unconscious).

In Figure 1 (previous page), I illustrated how meaning as the center of all the other matrices determines all the other matrices. In Figure 2 (below), I utilize a graphic created by Pascal Gambardella, Ph.D. that more accurately illustrates how the model works.  In this graphic, Pascal shows how Meaning does determine all the other matrices. But, your desires, your wants, your intentions are involved in creating the other five matrices. Thus, Intention sends your mind or directionalizes your thoughts in creating meanings of your concepts of Self, Power, Time, Others and World. Because you don’t like blocking and stuttering, you will desire to stop it and this not liking it and wanting to stop it will affect how you mentally frame the behavior. This is mostly done totally out of conscious awareness.

Figure 2
The 7 Matrices of Your Neuro-Semantics


I shall illustrate.  When a person who blocks and stutters anticipates an upcoming conversation, the person may fear that they will block based on past experiences (Time Matrix). But, the person does not want to repeat the past behavior of blocking (Intention Matrix) due to all the negative meanings the person has associated with blocking and stuttering (Meaning Matrix). These meanings find expression in the other matrices such as, “I don’t want to appear like I am a weirdo because I block” (Self Matrix). Or, “I am powerless to overcome this” (Power Matrix).  Etc.

So, in this illustration, note how the person’s defining of self is mostly determined by the meanings associated with blocking and stuttering. And, the intent or desire of not repeating past behaviors due to the meanings associated with blocking/ stuttering drives the meanings given to the other matrices: “I don’t want to appear like I am a weirdo because I block” (Self Matrix). Or, “I am powerless to overcome this” (Power Matrix).  Etc.

Below, I have listed some examples from my clients. I have categorized these in the seven areas of The Matrix Model. Turn to Table 1 at the back of this handout for a more thorough listing of meanings that I have discovered from questioning and from studying a good sampling of people who block and stutter.

How do we create “Meanings”:

  • We create a “meaning” first by making a “thing” out of something. In the context of blocking and stuttering, we do this by first naming the behavior of “disfluency” as blocking and stuttering.
  • We evaluate this “thing” called “disfluency” as something bad and to be avoided.
  • Then, we associate fear and shame with it.  The “disfluency” quickly becomes “blocking and stuttering – something “real” because it now has a label and meanings associated with it. Plus, we can “feel” it in our bodies and it is really real.

By doing this, an earlier disfluency gets called into an unwanted existence. From there we start creating more meanings around this thing called “blocking and stuttering:

Intentions/ Outcomes (What do you want in reference to this thing called blocking and stuttering? What are your outcomes/desires because you now have this thing called “blocking and stuttering?)

  • “I don’t want to look like a fool.”
  • “I am going to try to control this.”
  • “I am not going to repeat the past.”
  • “I am not going to let others see my vulnerabilities.”

Self/Identity (What does blocking and stuttering mean to you as a person):

  • “I am flawed.”
  • “I am broken.”
  • “I am not enough.”
  • “I am worthless.”
  • “I am insecure.”
  • “I can’t be enough.”
  • “I am embarrassed.”

Power/Resourcefulness (What does blocking and stuttering mean about your sense of being Resourceful or Un-resourceful, Powerful or Powerless?):

  • “I am out of control.”
  • “I don’t feel safe and protected.”
  • “I need to change.”
  • “I can’t be enough.”
  • “I should be doing better.
  • “If I hesitate in speaking, I will be perceived as weak.”

Time (What does blocking and stuttering mean to you in your relationship to “Time” and how do you view blocking and stuttering in reference to Time?):

  • “I am doomed to continue this behavior.”
  • “It has always been this way.”
  • “I have always blocked and stuttered and I always will.”
  • “I have to get it done.”
  • “I can’t take my time to say what I want to say.”

Others/ Relationship (What does blocking and stuttering mean to you in your relationship with Other people):

  • “It is not OK to stutter.”
  • “I am fearful of being rejected.”
  • “I can’t measure up to the expectations of other people.”
  • “I am less than they are.”
  • “I look foolish to them.”
  • “People determine or validate my worth.”
  • “What people say about me becomes truth.”
  • “I must protect myself from being hurt by others.”

World (What does blocking and stuttering mean to you in how you view the World you live in?):

  • “I should be doing better.”
  • “I have to do something.”
  • “I have to get it done.” (Time Matrix also)
  • “The whole issue revolves around ‘caring how I talk.’” (Self & Other Matrix also)
  • “I won’t succeed.”

Creating the “Block”

Such thinking creates a matrix of meanings that locks in the disfluency of childhood. The layering of these thoughts on top of one another creates the block. The layering multiplies the effect of all the thoughts. For instance, if you think, “I have always blocked and I always will.” And from there, you think, “I am a hopeless case.”  “Indeed, I am hopeless. I am not normal.” Etc. This layering of negative thoughts upon top of negative thoughts puts you into a total powerless state.

Figure 3
Layering Meanings for Blocking


It is the feelings and emotions emanating out of all these thoughts firing at one time which are embodied in the muscles surrounding breathing and speech that produce the blocking.  As with all panic attacks (Blocking functions exactly as a panic attack.), the emotions expressed in those particular muscles for breathing and speaking result in a physiological response called blocking. Stuttering is a result of the person trying to break through the block.

Figure 3 illustrates the phenomena of layering our minds. The mental frames of mind presented here come form one of my recent clients. With such meanings embedded in her chest, throat and jaws, are you surprised that she blocked?  And are you surprised that she had problems with depression as well?  Again, it is the layering upon layering of deeply unconscious negative meanings that find expression in those specific muscle groups for breathing and speaking that create the blocking and stuttering.

One gains fluency by removing or changing these meanings to newer and more positive meanings.  This will result in creating a newer and more powerful matrix to live in and to speak through.  What meanings have you created in each matrix surrounding your blocking and stuttering?  What would happen to your speech if all those meanings suddenly disappeared?

How do I change these meanings?

Basically, one changes the unwanted memories by creating new meanings in exactly the same way one created the negative memories.  I shall explain.  The blocking and stuttering became locked in by the child’s layering on negative meaning on top of negative meaning about what he or she didn’t like about the disfluency. As we mentioned earlier, this layering meaning on top of meaning acts to hold in the unwanted behavior. The layering actually multiplies the effect and creates the blocking from a simple disfluency.

So in changing those negative thoughts to positive thoughts, we want to layer on positive meanings on top of the negative meanings. For instance, say you experience fear of what others may think should you block and stutter. Instead of going the negative route, you instead go the positive route. You think, “I am a courageous person. I have lived my life blocking and stuttering. I have survived. That takes courage.” Now, take that thought and state of “courage” and apply it to the thought of fearing what others may think of your speech. Layer “fear” with “courage.”  See Figure 4 on the next page.

The basic pattern goes like this:

  1. Consider the fear-ridden thought that you will block and then stutter.
  2. Now, access a thought of faith or courage.  What do you have faith in?  What are you courageous about?  Access one of those resourceful thoughts.
  3. Apply the thought of faith/courage to the fear of blocking. Take the thought of faith/courage and bring it to bear (apply to) on the fear of blocking.

How do I do that?  Some people do it visually. They will have a picture of “fear” and then they will take a picture of “courage” and move “courage” on top of “fear” allowing “courage” to overwhelm “fear.” Others may do it kinesthetically by moving “courage” from wherever they feel it in their body to the place where they feel “fear” in their body.  Experiment and see what works best for you.

Figure 4
Layering Fear with Courage/ Faith


Think about it?  If ever time you felt fear of what others may think of you, you gave yourself permission to pause and then you access a state of courage or faith and then you applied that state to the state of fearing what others may or may not think of how you talk, what would happen? The brain learns through repetition. So, just keep repeating this. It takes practice but it has a tendency to work.  This pattern is the basic meta-stating pattern developed by L. Michael Hall, Ph.D.

The Drop Down Through Pattern

At last count, we have over 140 Neuro-Semantic patterns. With that many, which is the best?  That is a difficult question to answer, for some work better than others on an individual basis.  And, many are especially designed for specific issues. Indeed, one of the major benefits of the 7-Matrices Model is that it provides not only a diagnostic tool but it also provides a way for us to know which techniques to use on what problem.

However, if I were to point out one pattern that works the best in most contexts it would be this pattern. Indeed, I have been using it for eight years and have had more successes with it then any other single pattern.  About three years ago, we advanced the pattern by adding some Meta-States distinctions to it which is step # 5.

The Pattern

(Read “Rising Up to Drop Down Through” for a complete article and example of the Drop Down Through Pattern.)

1) Identify the experience and emotion you want to transform.

What do you feel just before you block?

What feelings/ emotions are behind your blocking/ stuttering?

What emotions or experiences are there that undermine your success as a speaker that you would like to eliminate?

2) Step into that experience.

Associate fully into that experience.

If you are aware of a particular experience that you would like to work on; be there present in that memory looking through your eyes, hearing what you heard and feeling what you felt then, now

Where do you feel this in your body?

What does it feel like?

How intensely are you experiencing this emotion?

Good, just be there with it for a moment, noticing … just noticing it fully… knowing that it is just an emotion and that you are so much more than any emotion…

3) Drop down through the experience.

This may feel strange, but you do know what it feels like when you drop … so feeling that feeling of dropping, just drop down through that experience until you drop down underneath that feeling…

What thought-feeling or emotion lies underneath that emotion?

And now just imagine dropping down through that feeling.

[Use the language and terms that the person gives you.]

And what thought-feeling comes to you as you imagine yourself dropping down through that one?

[Keep repeating this dropping-down through process until the person comes to “nothing…”  That is, to no feelings … to a void or emptiness.]

4) Confirm the emptiness

Just experience that “nothingness” or “void” for a moment.  Good.

Now let that nothingness open up and imagine yourself dropping through and out the other side of the nothingness.

What are you experiencing when you come out the other side of the nothingness? What or whom do you see?

[Repeat this several times  … to a second, third, or fourth resource state.]

Note: Sometimes people will not experience the void, the nothingness. They will drop right on down through the negative frames and right into the positive resources. At other times they may just pause briefly as they make the switch from the negative frames to the positive frames.

5) Meta-state each problem state

Use each resource state to apply to each problem state.

And when you feel X about Y, how does that transform things?

And when you even more fully feel X –  what other transformations occur?

Validate and solidify: just stay right here in this X resource and as you experience it fully, what happens to the first problem state (#1)?

6) Test

Let’s see what now happens when you try, and I want you to really try to see if you can get back the problem state that we started with.

When you try to do that, what happens?

Do you like this?

Would you like to take this into your future – into all of your tomorrows and into all your relationships?

Table 1

#1 Meaning/Value – Meaning Determines the Matrices C

1. Classification of non-fluent speech as blocking/stuttering

2. Associating blocking/stuttering with fear and shame

3. Evaluating blocking/stuttering as bad and unacceptable

4. Framing blocking/stuttering has the following meanings in the other matrices:
#7 Intention/Self #7 Intention/Power #7 Intention/Time #7 Intention/Others #7 Intention/World
(Attempted solutions that make the problem worse)
I don’t want to look like a fool?

I will not show my vulnerabilities or weaknesses.

I will play it safe and create a sense of security because I am not like others. I am more sensitive.

I can’t handle criticism well.

I’ve got to stop this.

This shows me to be inadequate and flawed.

I will “block” myself from stuttering!

 I am going to try to control this?

I am going to try to control every word that comes out of my mouth.

I need to change.

I must not stutter.

I have to catch this.

I will do that by becoming very self aware of my speech.

I have to try really hard not to block and stutter or I will look foolish.

 I am not going to repeat the past.

I am not going to make a fool of myself with my speech anymore.

If I block any emotion in this moment, it will give me more control.

I’m afraid this will be permanent so I will try hard to not to continue stuttering so I will “block” more.

 I am not going to attract attention.

I am not going to let others see my vulnerabilities.

I will not give others a chance to laugh at me.

I will not let them see me struggle.

I will avoid any situations around people or groups that will expose this weakness.

I will try to cover the stuttering up.

 I will not do anything that will draw attention to me in my work, career, etc.

I will avoid speaking situations that will attract attention to me.

I will try to be successful by avoiding all opportunities to speak.
#2 Self #3 Power #4 Time #5 Others #6 World
I am flawed. (“There is something wrong with me.”)

I am broken.

I am not enough.

I am inadequate.

I am flawed.

I am foolish.

I am worthless.

I am insecure.

I am timid

I am shy.

I am anxious.

I am tense.

I am “shamed.”

I am “possessed.”

I can’t be enough.

Embarrassment

I am ashamed.

I am angry.

I am abnormal.

Self-pity

My value is in my performance.

Unique (I stutter – I am special.)

 Loss of control

Frustration

Lack of protection Perceived hurt.

I need to change.

I can’t be enough.

I am terrified of speaking to ____________.

I need to be respected and loved in order to speak fluently. (Other)

I should be doing better.

I have to do something.

I have to get it done.

“It” (becoming fluent) works for everybody but me.

I cannot speak─

In public

On the phone

On stage

I cannot order in a restaurant.

I cannot introduce myself.

Hesitation is a sign of weakness.

Hesitation is a sign of fear.

Hesitation means you are unsure.

 Permanent

Doomed

It has always been this way.

I am not making progress.

I have to do something.

I have to get it done.

I can’t take my time  to say what I want to say (sense of being rushed).

 It is not OK to stutter.

Fear (of being rejected)

Expectations from others

Inability to measure up to expectations

Hurt (not being validated)

Rejection

Isolation

Protection – (From getting involved in a relationship.)

I am less than.

I look foolish.

Judged.

People validate or determine my worth.

What people say about me becomes the truth.

People judge the content of what I am saying.

I must protect myself from being hurt by others.

I must conceal my emotions.

I am doing something “bad” to them if I stutter.

 I should be doing better.

I have to do something.

I have to get it done.

“The whole issue revolves around ‘caring how I talk.’”

I won’t succeed.

I am out of control.

About the Presenter:

Bobby G. Bodenhamer, D.Min.
1516 Cecelia Dr.
Gastonia, NC  28054
(704) 864-3585
Fax: (704) 8641545
bobbybodenhamer@yahoo.com
www.neurosemantics.com

Dr. Bodenhamer first trained for the ministry, earned a doctorate in Ministry, and served several churches as pastor.  He began NLP training in 1990, studying with Dr. Gene Rooney, Dr. Tad James and Dr. Wyatt Woodsmall and receiving Master Practitioner and Trainer Certifications.  Since then, he has taught and certified NLP trainings at Gaston College in Dallas, NC.

Beginning in 1996, Dr. Bodenhamer began studying the Meta-States model and then teamed up with L. Michael Hall, Ph.D. to begin co-authoring several books.  Since that he has turned out many works as he and Michael have applied the NLP and Meta-States Models to various facets of human experience.

In 1996 also, Dr. Bodenhamer with Michael co-founded the Society of Neuro-Semantics.  This has taken his work to a new level, taken him into International Trainings, and set in motion many Institutes of Neuro-Semantics around the world. Dr. Bodenhamer authored the training manual, Mastering Blocking and Stuttering: A Handbook for Gaining Fluency. He is presently working on this manual for it to be published in book form.

Books Co-Authored by Dr. Bodenhamer:

Patterns For “Renewing the Mind” (w. Hall, 1997)

Time-Lining: Advance Time-Line Processes (w. Hall, 1997)

Figuring Out People: Design Engineering With Meta-Programs (w. Hall, 1997)

Mind Lines: Lines For Changing Minds (w. Hall, 1997, 2000 3rd edition)

The Structure of Excellence: Unmasking the Meta-Levels of Submodalities (w. Hall, 1999)

The User’s Manual of the Brain, Volume I (1999, w. Hall)

Hypnotic Language (2000, w. Burton)

The Structure of Personality: Modeling “Personality” Using NLP and Neuro-Semantics. (Hall , Bodenhamer, Bolstad, Harmblett, 2001)

Games for Mastering Fears (2001, with Hall)

The User’s Manual of the Brain, Volume II (2003, w. Hall)

Mind to Muscle Pattern: A Case Study

by

A Case Study with Fernando
Bobby G Bodenhamer, D.Min.

Pour la traduction française, cliquez ici (PDF)

Fernando as a 27 year old male had experienced blocking/stuttering since he was nine years old.  During our first few hours of therapy, Fernando’s father stood out as the main contributor to Fernando’s problem. The fear of his father drove his anxieties that were behind his blocking.

As I was questioning Fernando during our fourth session about how it was in his home as a child when he desired to express his feelings, Fernando replied, “I was never allowed to express my feelings. I was made to believe that my feelings were not ‘legitimate.’ I have always thought that my father lay at the root of my problems. Deep inside I always knew that dad was at the root of my blocking.”

I kept on going with this thought when Fernando interrupted. Fernando inquired, “Did you notice?”  I inquired, “Notice what?”  Fernando continued, “When I was telling you about my thoughts concerning dad’s being at the root of my blocking, I was fluent. I felt a ‘lightness’ in my chest and I was totally fluent.”  “Yes, that is correct Fernando, you were totally fluent.”

I picked up on this thought and explained to Fernando how that when a child is not permitted to express honest emotion, that can cause great harm in adulthood. Then I inquired, “And, Fernando, what does it mean to you that you felt that ‘lightness’ in your chest when you were expressing honest emotions and beliefs about your father’s role in your blocking?”

Fernando, “It means that the feeling is right.”  Further inquiry revealed that to Fernando, experiencing that ‘lightness’ in his chest when he was discussing his honest feelings about his father’s role in his blocking, let him know that his feelings were right all along and that his father was the one in the wrong. Fernando summarized it when he said, “My feelings are valid.”

So, picking up on Fernando’s principal that “His feelings were valid,” I proceeded to lead him in incorporating this principal into his very muscles. The fear of his father being incorporated into his muscles drove his blocking. So, Fernando’s ability to honestly express his feelings about his father and getting the affirmation from the internal feeling of lightness provided an extremely valuable resource in Fernando’s gaining fluency.  I proceeded with the “Mind to Muscle Pattern” to install this resource state into his muscles (See Figure 1).

  1. The principal to incorporate into my muscles – The principal that I wanted to lead Fernando in installing in his muscles was, “My feelings are valid.”
  2. Describing the principle as a belief – “So, Fernando, what do you believe about your ‘feelings being valid?’”  Fernando, “I believe that my feelings are valid.”
  3. Re-formating the belief as a decision – “And, Fernando, what will holding the belief that your feelings are valid lead to in your life?  What will you decide to do?”  “I am going to apply it. I am going to be conscious of it all the time.”
  4. Rephrasing the belief and decision as an emotional state/experience – “How do you feel about that, Fernando?”  “It makes me feel like I have some control of myself.  I have a ‘feeling of control.’”
  5. Turning the emotions into actions that express the belief and decision – “And with that ‘feeling of control,’ how will you be changing your behavior?”  “I will be conscious of it all the time especially when the validity of my feelings is being challenged especially with my father. This will certainly give me a lot more ‘hope’ – that’s for sure!”
  6. Stepping into the action and letting the higher levels of the mind spiral downwards – I led Fernando to repeat the above thought-feelings several times. He wrote them down to continue processing. The purpose is to take these thoughts and to continue rehearsing them in one’s mind over and over and putting them into practice so that they become habituated.

Summary Steps to “Mind-to-Muscle”

  1. “I understand…”
  2. “I believe…”
  3. “From this day forward I will…”
  4. “I feel and experience…”
  5. “The one thing that I will do today as an expression of this understanding, concept, belief, decision and state is….”
  6. Step into your higher understandings and bring it back down through numbers 2 to 5. Repeat this looping to install.

Figure 1
Mind to Muscle Pattern
A Case Study


Click here to read an article on the web site which has more information about the Mind-to-Muscle Pattern.
Pour la traduction française, cliquez ici (PDF)

Author:

Bobby G. Bodenhamer, D.Min. is an international trainer in Neuro-Semantics and NLP, author of numerous books, ordained minister, and director of the First Institute of NS in Gastonia NC.